Apologies if my commenting offends or irritates anyone, but:

He is very apologetic. 😀

How will they save anything? They still need to replace the Aging F-16’s , F-15’s , F-18’s and harriers . The F-35 is 40 billion to develop in 3 versions ie . standard AF version , STOVL version and Carrier version . That is damn cheap if you ask me , you satisfy the needs of 3 services for 40 billion in development . How much would it cost to develop a dedicated Stealth Fighter for the USN? And @ 100-120 million a pop how much different would it be to the F-35 interms of capabilitiy? Remember the USAF’s buy sibsidizes the USN’s aircrafts (economies of scale) aswell as the Marine core’s , for 120 million the USN gets a much more capable fighter then what they could have gotten had they gone sole with a demand for 300-400 jets . Look at the F-22 as a program , 80 billion budgeted which includes development and procurment of 183 jets specific for ONE SERVICE . For the same ammount of money the Taxpayer can provide 100 service specific jets that can take off and land on carriers , on land , and are STOVL and still have a squadron left over .

Which do you think is more productive? And we are not factoring in here owner ship costs , where the basic requirment was that the F-35 still be cheap (relativly) to maintain and operate (like the F-16) whereas the twin engined NO HOLDS BARRED F-22 is not as cheap .

Please highlight the capabilities that you think make this an AVERAGE aircraft?

How is the F-35 Not high tech? Apart from TVC it pretty much utilizes every technology developed for the F-22 one way or the other , The radar is a latest gen AESA , the EOTS is second to none , the front office is nothing short of modern” , the 360 degree IR suite is also nothing to complain about . I see no way in which the F-35 is too downgrade infact IN MY OPINION having chosen a High – LOW mix the USAF should have gone for something less capable then the F-35 but much cheaper , like a Delta winged Block 70 F_16 but thats another story . In my veiw the F_22 , F-35 isnt a high – low mix but a HIGH – MEDIUM HIGH mix .

Add the cost of making the line bigger and more tooling ( thats about 2-3 billion for ramp up to those no.s as it has to trickle down to all vendors) moreover the F_22 is only more capable A2A , it is not as flexible as the F_35 for A2G . Factor in inflation , the process of making the Raptor isnt LEAN like the F-35 (my team designed both of them (partly) ) , the F-35 manufactering will become much more cheaper (built in feature of its manufactering ) whereas such savings (of the same proportion) will not be realized by the Raptor . Moreover what are you gonna do with 2000 Air superiority fighters? What about A2G fighters? And multi role fighters? what about the Navy? Do they start a new program to replace F-18’s ? thats another 60-80 billion right their for development and procurment for about 300 units , and what about the marines? lets suppose they buy the same product the navy develops (but wont meet their STOVL requirment) thats about 20 billion for them lets say , so 100 billion for a new aircraft project for the navy and marine core , when you could have gotten 3 developed fighters for 3 different services for 40 billion . Remember the procurment cost for the other fighter would be through the roof because as compared to the F-35 only roughly 1/5 or 1/6 th of the total are being procured .

Then their is the Legandary cost escalation of DOD programs , here we are dealing with cost escalation of 1 program for 3 services , god knows what will happen if each service works on their on $hit . triple the beur. triple the red tapism , triple the corruption…I see a lot of uncertaintly .

Hi BIO, always like reading your stuff. USAF is overspending some with it’s thinking that more short-range fighters are the answer. It needs money spent on longer range assets. We are and will continue to lose more and more foreign bases to strike from. JSF may be the best all around tac fighter in the future. However it has a lot of work to do to prove that. Then again once a IADS is beat down by F-22, B-22 and SOWs in number, we don’t need stealth for stealth’s sake. And the narrow band Buick of stealth won’t be able to handle S-300 or better threats anyway. The USAF needs money spent on tankers, airlift, C4ISR, long range bombers. It is seriously hurting. For most of the wars we fight an F-15E has more value than a JSF.(range,payload,two man crew) Then of course now we have 450 A-D F-15s grounded for the third time. Word-up in my neck of the woods here is that the third discovery could be a show stopper. Unknown at this time. Meanwhile we still have F-16 in production and we aren’t ordering any for USAF. Dumb. For most of our AEFs an F-16 can do the job. It can also do home Defence intercepts and not too bad with CFTs. The USAF’s ability to see and manage the little money it has is a big big problem. Yes develop JSF. No to spending funds on it without still building more F-16s. There is a huge drop out in fighters (below what we reasonably need) starting after 2015 or so. JSF isn’t going to solve filling that hole. Building some F-16s will. Then again of course we are now combat-ready down 450 F-15s. The F-15A-D is a poor long term investment as it can only do air-to-air. They are operationally useless on a lot of AEFs because they can’t do air-to-ground and can’t even do simple roving ISR ( no SNIPER or LITENING etc).

Could anyone explain to me what the hell the X-35 was all about if they are encountering these (quite major) problems just now?!?!

Did all the people at Lockheed sit on their arses and scratch their holes with the philosophy “as long as the X-35 isn’t a smoking hole in the ground – nothing is wrong”?!?!?

I think it is nothing short of disgraceful that prototyping problems were not ironed out after the prototype was flown and those lessons learned applied to the production model. If this kind of farce happened in any kind of commercial environment, the company would go bust, and rightly so. Instead, the USAF are rewarding incompetence with further money :confused:

Why is that not coming from Lockheed instead of the US taxpayer?

The demos were smoke and mirrors. Yes some of the technology was there but not a lot of the stuff that SDD changed. Especially since even up until not to long ago, all the design diagrams were yet to be finished.

# There will never be 24xx F-35 for the U.S. aerial forces. Said that before. My bet is at 1500 max.

I’ll say when all said and done, just a wager mind you, that USAF will end up with about 800-900 tops. Cost growth, technical issues yet to figure out and a whole bunch of train-wreck other airframes in USAF that need replacement: Tankers, airlift, long range bomber, C4ISR, etc etc. USAF declared an extension of their production slots out to 2038-40. That is all unfunded at this time. Unless you have something in writing that says USAF will spend x, y and z in 2020,2021,2022….2040 etc., it is just a plan subject to change/whim.

Newer technologies will move along, including things like DEW or any other surprises. Example, if Russia somehow invents a radar that can weaponeer SAMs with VHF radar, that is going to make narrow-band stealth aircraft kind of naked. Not saying THAT one is going to happen, however this IS 2007, …. 2020+ is a long way off.

USAF getting 1700+ F-35s is no absolute. 2400+ for all U.S. services? Better hope UCAS-D for the USN ( 1400-1500 mile strike range from the carrier deck ) crashes and burns. That of course again is only one of may possibilities. Just for the GWOT end of warfare ( which is not everything ) Reaper UCAVs and B-1 bombers are a lot more useful ( persistence ).

whoa whoa whoa! way to get ahead of ourselves!

i wouldn’t expect many/any foreign orders AT THIS TIME

large scale production is still years away, costs and specs aren’t fully finalized, no one’s going to sign a huge contract at this point

looked at the other way, how many partners have backed out and said they aren’t buying? none. And then you have israel practically tripping over itself to pickup early copies

i’m not sure what slap of reality you’re referring to

yes that is the plan and that has been the plan and nothing has changed

here’s a hint though, look at the years beyond that

2013: 132
2014: 205
2015: 230
2016: 231
2017: 230
2018: 219
2019: 181
2020: 159
2021: 150
2022: 143
2023: 132
2024: 139
2025: 093
2026: 093
2027: 091
2028-2035: 515
total: 3173 (2443 US, 138 UK, 131 Italy, 100 Australia, 100 Turkey, 85 Netherlands, 80 Canada, 48 Denmark, 48 Norway)

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-8995.html

USAF has already cut 48 off of the plan due to cost growth and extended JSF buys out to…. 2040 or so. (hence all the talk about refirbing “golden eagles” and SLEPing the youngest F-16s out to 2025 or so)

UK in their current funding mode I would say is not stable.
Italy as I have mentioned has already moved deliveries “to the right”
Delays and extending the time raise cost.
Australia 100. Fat chance
Turkey is still thinking it is FMS time and needs an attitude adjustment.
Read the latest article from the Ft Star Telegram in my post above. $100 million each per jet not counting inflation etc there is no way Denmark and the Netherlands will keep the original number.

Email Cox at the Ft Worth Star Telegram. He has talked to LM, Canada is now at 60. They are also looking at other solutions and aren’t going to jump in blind.

Norway is looking at Gripen and Typhoon also.

That is a lot of luck being hoped for for keeping program costs down to where the jet is “affordable”. ( It’s original goal).

The F-35 was designed from the start to be cheaper and will be procured in the thousands…………:D

F-22 didn’t have an F-35 multinational business plan being pushed on congress that started out all happy face. Where right now no non-U.S. team member is buying at the moment except a couple wait-and-see test aircraft: UK and the Dutch (3 UK test B models? and a Dutch A model (wasn’t Italy going to do this too??). Those two are thinking one thing: Try before you buy. They want a working jet before a big order is signed for. With weapons/stores qualifications that were supposed to happen in SDD dropping off of the chart ( The big drop tank was “dropped” in 2006 along with some other weapons) and with test aircraft being cut in order to save SDD funding, a non-U.S. team member wanting proof of life at the end of SDD is a smart play. I don’t think you will see all those weapons mentioned in the pretty Sept 2006 brief cleared by the end of SDD.

Early in the business plan years ago they were very hopeful 😉 It’s cost models that were sold in all the early happy-face briefings were based on production not being slowed down and everyone ordering on schedule.

Now with no non-U.S. orders, the business plan is going out the window. BTW: One of the first JSF program managers stated that cost wouldn’t start flattening out on the business plan until 1500 airframes.

Based on this current slap of reality:

2008 defense spending

Procurement: 12 planes, $2.65 billion

Research and development: $3.5 billion

Planned production

Lot 1, 2006-09: two planes

Lot 2, 2007-10: 12 planes

Lot 3, 2008-11: 16 planes

Lot 4, 2009-12: 32 planes

Lot 5, 2010-13: 47 planes

Lot 6, 2011-14: 118 planes

I don’t see costs going down any time soon. That’s a few shy of 1500.

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/337511.html

Then lets break down the team members- USN isn’t too reliable at the moment as they are crying about trying to reach a 300 ship fleet and can’t even order a frigate sized ship (LCS) without blowing out cost and screwing it up. Super Hornet looks like a carrier airplane at least and it is cheap. Marines have waffled back and forth along with Navy and they haven’t agreed yet on what the mix should be.

USAF is out of money like you wouldn’t believe.You also have things like this to consider: http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/fal06/spalding.html

“canceling an upcoming forecast weapon system such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) might seem to be an extreme measure, but a properly imagined Red Flag would make it a clear necessity.”

UK – The news is always hopeful about their defense spending isn’t it?

Norway is looking at three horses right now. JSF isn’t an absolute. Thats 48 F-35s lost if they pick something else now.

Canada formed a fighter board of some kind to look at the future. Who knows? They were on the Sep 2006 brief for 88 or something weren’t they? Cox from Ft Worth Start Telegram says they are now at 60 as per what LM said.

Turkey? They still have to get out of the offset mode. Good luck. Not saying it isn’t impossible but who knows?

Australia hasn’t signed for theirs yet and with procurement procedure being questioned after the election I’d put them in the “?” column. Probably a try before you buy test F-35 or so to help testing but with program costs already high I don’t think you will see the original 100 or even 70 add to that their fighter pilot pipeline is now in serious trouble.

Italy seems pretty ballsy on this but according to this:

“A source says JSF programme partners the UK and Italy have “moved aircraft to the right”, making F-35s available for early delivery to FMS customers. Israel is expected to be the first FMS buyer for the F-35, with a requirement for 100 aircraft.”

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/11/11/219261/no-f-35s-for-israel-before-2014.html

Uh oh….

I’ll put my money on the Netherlands 85 and the Danes 48 cutting the order by half because of cost growth. That is more of a wager however with the cost going up, maybe not such a bad wager.

I would say LM has to redo the sales strategy. Maybe using one more suited to selling washing machines and refrigerators. (i.e. demo’ing a finished product)

As for a B-1 doing CAS, a position would be overrun by the time a sortie was organised and flow into the area. And even then a JDAM might be a hammer to crack a nut.

After enemy aircraft are killed off, the B-1 is an excellent CAS platform. Proven been there done it in CAS. Even JTACs(GFACs) say so. When one shows up it carries a variety of weapons and can actually hang around a while until the event is settled. JDAM has been doing excellent CAS support for a long time. B-1s show up with a mix of 2000lb and 500 pound PGMs. B-1 is also showing up now with a SNIPER-XR attached. This means laser-JDAM when that shows up and of course Paveways and just the general usefulness of E/O pods to look at things and of course get ROVER info from the JTAC. Also self generated geolocations from the SNIPER and B-1 radar-bombing or radar off-set bombings on known locations like buildings means that the B-1 can put a JDAM down into the sub 2 meter accuracy range.

B-1s hang around on call so they aren’t too far away if needed. There already on a planned ground offensive. As for the F-35B it is yet to fly and prove itself. It may be the best tactical fighter ever, but that program still has a lot of work to do to prove it.